Takfir wal-Hijra

Takfir wal-Hijra is an Islamist terrorist group that was formed in 1971 in Egypt by Shukri Mustafa. The group emerged as an offshoot of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, and in 1977 the group was crushed by the government after the murder of a government minister. However, it left an enduring legacy, and its members in other countries operated as allies of al-Qaeda. By the 1990s, it had a decentralized network of cells in other countries, and from 1994 to 2006 the group was responsible for at least five mosque attacks in Sudan, including the murder of 16 worshippers in 1994 and the slaughter of 20 people and wounding of 33 others in 2000. On 31 December 2000, hundreds of Takfiris launched sudden attacks on civilians and clashed with the Lebanese Army, and in November 2002 the group murdered US diplomat Laurence Foley in Jordan as well as the 2005 killing of Christians in Dinnieh. Today, the term describes a wide variety of militant groups that have little or no connection with each other.